CEA and the Human Touch

CEA AND THE HUMAN TOUCH

Advancements in Controlled Environment Agriculture

BY JAN TEGLER

If you’ve ever walked into a greenhouse infused with light, warmth, and color in the dead of winter, you’ve experienced controlled environment agriculture (CEA).

The simple idea of covering crops to protect them from temperature fluctuation, weather extremes, disease, and pests – basic CEA – has been around since Roman times, but it wasn’t until the 17th century that the modern concept of the greenhouse was born.

Today, greenhouses and other CEA structures – from repurposed industrial buildings to container farms – are in use globally and produce a wide variety of crops. Light, air temperature, relative humidity, carbon dioxide, soil acidity, and nutrients are the main elements CEA regulates, allowing vegetables, fruit, and flowers to be cultivatedin ideal growing conditions that would be impossible to achieve consistently in traditional open-field agriculture.

Soil-based growing systems in modern greenhouses still comprise the largest segment of CEA, but indoor farming, particularly vertical farming in urban settings, is growing steadily with hydroponic and aeroponic systems. In 2017, the global indoor farming market was valued at $106.6 billion and is expected to register a compound annual growth rate of 3.4 percent between 2018 and 2023. North America accounted for nearly 44.2 percent of the global market in 2017.

With United Nations predictions that by 2050, more than two-thirds of the world’s 9 billion people will live in cities, CEA can contribute significantly to the year-round production of fresh vegetables in urban areas, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But the agency also acknowledges the challenges to modern CEA, including high startup costs, high energy consumption and costs, the comparatively limited number and variety of crops that vertical farming can currently produce (primarily leafy greens), lower overall yield, and thin operating/profit margins.

Research and investment in “smart CEA,” part of the new movement toward digital agriculture, will solve some of these challenges. Investment in human capital will take CEA further.

Today, greenhouses and other CEA structures – from repurposed industrial buildings to container farms – are in use globally and produce a wide variety of crops.

SMART CEA

Technology is being applied to CEA as never before. Smart CEA leverages advances in software-based environmental monitoring and control systems and automation along with cloud-based data collection and analytics to make indoor farming more efficient. New, primarily small, technology companies are offering an array of integrated solutions for managing CEA operations, selling subscription-based services to establishedgreenhouse growers and CEA start-ups.

GrowFlux, Inc., a 5-year-old firm based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is a good example of the trend. Founded by Eric Eisele, an entrepreneur/engineer with experience in the industrial Internet of Things, the company manufactures connected horticultural lighting and sensing solutions and indoor agriculture automation systems.

Artificial lighting-based indoor agriculture systems are receiving “huge interest” from vertical farming operators, technology companies, and investors, says Murat Kacira, Ph.D., director of the Controlled Environment Agriculture Center at the University of Arizona.

“That’s where you’ll find software companies, cloud computing/data analytics companies, even those dealing with artificial intelligence and machine-learning,” Kacira said. “There’s huge investment from companies like Amazon and Google, banks, and other investors – not only for use in the vertical farming sector but also to make them available for greenhouse operations.”

Allen Sirmon, right, speaks with U.S. Department of Agriculture Alabama State Executive Director David McCurdy, center, about the butterhead lettuce grown through hydroculture in the Sirmon Farms greenhouse. In the greenhouse, where oxygen and nutrients are regulated, the lettuce grows 20 to 30 percent faster than in the fields.

Photos Courtesy of Growflux. Inc

Artificial lighting represents the largest expenditure for vertical farms and cannabis growing facilities, and is a considerable expense for many greenhouses. Thus, advances in lighting technology are a prime focus for CEA operators. In recent years, LEDs have gained popularity, but many in CEA are wary, noting their high cost of installation and operation.

GrowFlux offers integrated solutions for artificial lighting, Eisele explains. The company’s products start with broad-spectrum LED lights, which produce light in the spectral range that plants use for photosynthesis. The “tunable” LEDs allow indoor growers to manipulate crop outcomes and flowering. “We’re also able to shorten harvests and boost the chemical content of crops with certain spectrum settings of light,” Eisele said.

Digital microclimate sensors that monitor temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide, vapor pressure, and light in close proximity to crops are also part of GrowFlux’s smart CEA package. Unlike more common wall-mounted sensors that measure the overall conditions in a greenhouse, microclimate sensors capture plant response to conditions at the source. Data from the sensors can be fed into algorithms in GrowFlux’s automated systems to tailor control of light or other environmental conditions for optimum growing.

Farmer Sara Constantineau grows three different varieties of basil in a vertical farm setting at Square Roots, a group of urban farms housed in shipping containers, in Brooklyn, New York.

Photos Courtesy of Growflux. Inc

GrowFlux’s Chlorophyll Fluorescence Sensor, or CLF, is a good example. Set to debut later this year, CLF allows indoor farming operations to detect how efficiently photosynthesis is happening in real time inside plants.

“With that data, we can identify the circadian rhythm of a plant,” Eisele explained. “We can determine when the plant is not photosynthesizing as efficiently as it may be in other parts of a day. Then we can feed that data into our lighting control scheduling.”

Microclimate sensors feeding data over a wireless network to GrowFlux’s automated lighting controls increase production and save energy.

“We’ll feed direct plant response data into our algorithm,” Eisele said. “That will tell our lights to go to full intensity when the plants are able to use all of the light. When they’re not, the algorithm will tell the lights not to produce as much light.”

Data integration completes the system. GrowFlux is at work currently on a cloud-based platform that will allow the company to modularize the complex algorithms it has developed for automated lighting and other environment controls. With open source platforms, users will be able to “drag and drop” algorithms tailored for their needs into control automation software.

Horticultural LED lights from GrowFlux installed in a greenhouse. The company’s lights can be “tuned” using input from microclimate sensors to deliver the appropriate amount of light for optimum growing.

Photos Courtesy of Growflux. Inc

“We’ll be offering our data integration platform as a service on our cloud platform.”

CEA operators will be able to subscribe to GrowFlux for a monthly fee with environmental control software, sensors, and data-warehousing in the cloud included. Smart CEA as a service is a model Kacira says indoor growers will adopt more and more. He explains that until recently, CEA operations purchased environmental control systems (sensors, controllers, and software) as a package.

An indoor cannabis cultivation facility featuring GrowFlux lighting. Advances in lighting technology are of particular interest to CEA operators, as artificial lighting represents the largest financial expenditure for vertical farms and cannabis growing facilities, and is generally a significant expense for many greenhouses.

Photos Courtesy of Growflux. Inc

“You installed it in the computer at your site, learned how to operate that system, and how to analyze the data you get.

“But now high-tech environmental control system companies like this are providing software-based control as a fee-based service via the cloud,” he said. “Operators don’t worry about installing software at their site. They simply access the cloud for data extraction and analysis. This comes with innovative data analytics and visualization where growers would not necessarily need to dig into the data and grasp the analytics on their own.”

THE HUMAN TOUCH

While the benefits of smart CEA can be significant, they are not presently being maximized, says Kacira. That’s because technology solutions

for CEA – whether in the form of software-driven automation and environmental controls or hardware enabled by software, including robot labor – must be utilized by greenhouse operators and indoor farmers who understand the fundamentals of biology and agriculture.

“That has been the limitation of the industry so far to grow at a speed beyond what you’re now seeing,” he said. “They’re missing a component, not understanding the biology or engineering associated with these systems and agriculture, not understanding the analytics as well in an integrated fashion.”

That’s why graduates of the University of Arizona’s Controlled Environment Agriculture Center and similar programs nationally are in demand. They are key to CEA’s future, Kacira says.

“We see that gap in many of these operations,” he said. “You bring together expertise on the computational side and some expertise on the agriculture side, but they don’t talk to each other effectively sometimes. People are needed who can make the linkage, people who can help the biological or agriculture group present their needs in terms of plant production so that engineering can understand that need and deliver the technology compatibly.”

Kacira thinks that traditional agriculture degree programs will not be able to deliver the kind of people CEA needs. He argues that the industry is looking for graduates who are trained broadly in collaboration-based degree programs where graduates can specialize in one discipline but also learn other skill sets including engineering, biology, and soft skills like business and entrepreneurship.

“This requires nontraditional, multidisciplinary, collaborative degree programs in university settings,” Kacira explained. “I would like to underline that investment in human capital is very important.”

Murat Kacira, Ph.D., speaks with a student at the University of Arizona Controlled Environment Agriculture Center vertical farm research and education facility. Kacira believes graduates who understand both the agricultural and engineering components of CEA are necessary to move the industry forward.

MARRYING CEA AND FIELD-BASED AGRICULTURE

The notion that controlled environment agriculture operations like greenhouses and the varied indoor facilities used for vertical farming are separate from field-based farming has to change, Kacira says.

Vertical farming in urban settings or in food deserts like the planet’s northern and southern latitudes or in the Middle East can be viable, Kacira observes, producing food crops linked directly to local distribution facilities and markets and conserving resources. But integrating greenhouses, vertical farming, and open field agriculture can produce larger benefits.

He suggests that vertical farms growing seedlings or transplants could be co-located with greenhouses, which can then use the seedlings to produce crops. “You can improve the quality, consistency, and cost in terms of growing seedlings that are needed for greenhouse operations. And you save space doing that.

“That marries the complementary nature of greenhouses and vertical farming in food production. You can even do it with field-based agriculture where you need transplants and seedlings, which could be grown in vertical farms or greenhouses with highquality consistency in a speedy way.”

The point at which technology, efficient use of energy, automation, and maximization of human capital intersect is the target CEA should be aiming for, Kacira concludes.

“I think if we can integrate field-based and CEA operations and bring technology and people to bear, we will definitely succeed in growing food and using resources more sustainably and cost effectively.”